Website aims to break social stigma around mental illness

Can listening to the personal stories of people with mental illness reduce stigma and increase society's understanding? That's the hope of Raincity Housing, a Downtown Eastside agency that houses and provides support to residents who often battle mental illness and/or substance abuse.

On Monday, the start of Mental Health Week, Raincity launched an interactive website and a series of videos on YouTube in which local people talk about themselves in an effort to reduce the fear around mental illness.

“It has been said that mental illness is one of the last socially acceptable stigmas within our society. I think it is because some of these ideas or myths around mental illness are so deeply ingrained in us,” Aaron Munro, the project's lead, says in a video that introduces the series.